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Well, it’s been a blast, but Marsh Madness has finally come to an end. We saw sixteen food blogs join in the fun, competing for the honor of best marshmallow. Their recipes were incredibly creative, and everyone at the Quirk HQ was thrilled to see them rolling in week after week.

Other highlights included our Facebook exclusive recipe cards, a special podcast featuring Marshmallow Madness’ editor Margaret McGuire, and a number of other blogs (Eat The Love, Sweets by Sillianah) creating their own wild recipes just because. All in all, a great time. Thank you!

Last week we saw some amazing recipes from Ice Cream Before Dinner, The Kitchenarian, Nibble Me This, and Love & Olive Oil in the Southeast Bracket. Links to their respective (and delicious!) recipes are below.

Ice Cream Before Dinner: Raspberry Cheesecake Marshmallows

The Kitchenarian: Cinnamon Toast Marshmallows

Nibble Me This: Fakin’ Bacon & Eggs

Love & Olive Oil: Cookie Dough Marshmallows

You can head over to Serious Eats for the full recap from Caroline Russock.

As for the winner of Marsh Madness, Shauna Sever selected Kitchen Konfidence’s Maple Bacon S’mores. One of the earliest recipes in the bracket, Brandon’s recipe combines bacon, chocolate, marshmallows, and homemade graham crackers. You can read her thoughts on the bracket and the winner on Serious Eats. Brandon wins a Quirk cookbook library and a $100 gift card to Williams-Sonoma. Congrats, Brandon!

To scope out the other entries, visit Serious Eats.

A huge thank you to everyone who participated and to our partners-in-mallows, Serious Eats and Caroline Russock. This was a lot of fun.

Something might be wrong in the baking world today. Bakery shelves are stacked high with the trendiest dessert, filled or flavored or “kissed” with the latest popular ingredient, and hidden under a crazy design. These are delicious and fun to look at, but somewhere along the line, we have to ask ourselves, “Where is the cake?”

Look friends, birthdays happen and nothing hits the spot like a good old-fashioned sugar-eggs-flour-butter birthday cake. Every decent baker should have a good cake recipe as his or her trump card. If someone tells you they don’t agree, they’ve never had a from scratch birthday cake, and since you are reading this, it is now your responsibility to make them the birthday cake of all birthday cakes—Yellow Cake.

Yellow cake is a cake Ron Swanson from Parks & Recreation would appreciate. It’s no nonsense, has a couple ingredients, and tastes like cake. Let’s remember that on a birthday, it should be ok to indulge. This cake requires a couple more eggs and some more butter than most which gives it a rich taste while keeping the texture airy and moist. Paired with a simple fudgy frosting, which can be whipped together in a food processor, yellow cake is a marriage of kid birthday party nostalgia and adult sophistication. Adding touches like neon dinosaur shaped nonpareils (a friend of mine picked these up for me at Home Goods) or an assortment of colorful jimmies makes the decoration even more fun.

In my experience, if you show up to a birthday with a messy, handmade cake, you’ll be forgiven of faults and suddenly attract many more friends.

Raspberry Lemonade Marshmallows by Culinary Cory

The competition is heating up! The East Coast brought their A game in this past week’s around of #MarshMadness. Scope out this week’s participants below.

Small Kitchen College: Honeyed Grapefruit Marshmallows

Cinnamon Spice & Everything Nice: Banana Split Marshmallows

Culinary Cory: Raspberry Lemonade Marshmallows With Coconut

The Queen’s Notebook: Mango Banana & Purple Yam Bunny Marshmallows

And if you tuned in to Cleaning Plates this week, they hosted a special guest podcast with Marshmallow Madness’ editor, Margaret McGuire. Give it a listen. They chat about marshmallows, cooking, books, and more in the short and sweet episode.

Caroline over on Serious Eats has the full recap. Remember to keep up with the campaign via #MarshMadness on Twitter.

Even though she's busy taking over the Internet with #MarshMadness, Shauna Sever isn't going to stop there. She's hitting New York this week, visiting Posman Books at Chelsea Market.

At Posman Books at Chelsea Market, Shauna will be signing books for an hour and handing out samples in the cozy bookshop. Chelsea Market is the food mecca for a lot of New Yorkers, so we're psyched to see Shauna in such an awesome place. For more information on the signing, visit Chelsea Market's official website.

Marshmallow Madness Signing @ Posman Books
March 7th, 6:30pm – 7:30pm

Chelsea Market
75 Ninth Ave.
New York NY 10011
www.chelseamarket.com

Lucky Charms Marshmallows by Barbara Bakes

The (marsh) madness continues! Last week we saw some incredible recipes, whipped up by Barbara Bakes, Foodie Bride, and Baked Bree. Here on Quirkbooks.com, we joined in the fun by posting some recipe cards on our Facebook page, which you can grab here. Caroline over at Serious Eats has the full recap, and here are the links to the recipes below.

Barbara Bakes: Lucky Charms Marshmallows

Foodie Bride: Baileys Marshmallows

Baked Bree: Chai Latte Marshmallows

And bonus, check out Eat The Love’s custom made carrot cake marshmallows. Wow!

Keep an eye out for the next contenders! And make sure you’re following the bracket on Twitter via #MarshMadness.

Marsh Madness is still going strong. This week you can look forward to unique recipes from Baked Bree, Barbara Bakes, and Foodie Bride.

Here on Homemade Quirk, we’re dishing out some exclusive recipe cards on Facebook. Head on over to the Quirk Books Facebook page to score some three printable cards with recipes for Ultimate Hot Chocolate, Homemade Marshmallow Creme, and Classic Vanilla Marshmallows.

Enjoy! And remember to keep up with the Marshmallow Madness bracket on Twitter (#MarshMadness) and to follow the campaign over on Serious Eats.